


going away to college

by chraezanty17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, gratuitous punk rock and pop punk music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chraezanty17/pseuds/chraezanty17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over her chest. </p><p>"If you start playing Wonderwall one more time I will kill someone and that blood will be on your hands."</p>
            </blockquote>





	going away to college

By the third hour, she wanted to throw rotten tomatoes.

 

It had been cute, at the beginning. The heat was pressing down on her, an actual weight that did nothing but confirm how useless her cooling fan was. She was just settling down on the bed, back to the wall, drink in hand, windows opened as wide as they would go, when she heard it, one apartment above her own.

She laughed. It had been a while since she had last listened to  _Wonderwall_ performed unironically.

So Ygritte sat there, sipping her iced tea in peace, waiting for the tinge of dissonance to dissipate and the disembodied voice to switch to another song.

It didn't happen.

At first, she had made a game of it. Every time Amateur Gallagher messed up, she added an ice cube to her drink. This got boring too quickly for her liking, as practice proved to make exponentially less terrible, if not perfect.

One hour in, she was scanning her contacts with desperation to have an excuse to leave her current hearing range. Val? She was celebrating her one-year-anniversary with Jarl. Couldn't ruin that. Mance and Dalla? Half-dead. Cause: parenting a newborn child. No hard feelings.

She sighed and wondered if there was a set number of how often it took to listen to a single song before that person either went into a trance or massacred their fellow man in a haze of rage. Closing the window had hardly muted the music and anyway, she was dependent on every hint at a breeze the weather saw fit to grant her.

Two and a half hours in, the sound of acoustic guitar abruptly ceased. She froze, thinking herself safe.

Ten minutes or so into the future, she found that to be false.

"Oh, fuck me." She muttered.

She decided that such a situation deserved drastic measures.

Sneakers put on feet, she ascended the flight of stairs to the apartment above her, ready to chuck  _Dookie_ at her tormentor's face as hard as it took to deliver the message.

The door opened to reveal a guy that immediately made her think of a lost puppy.

Black hair, intense grey eyes, in shape.

Her tongue appeared to be stuck to the roof of her mouth for the moment.

The hot guy was looking at her quizzically. "Hello?"

Her paralysis was broken and she blurted, "You have a cool voice but for the love of all the old gods and the new how can you not hear that your guitar is extremely out of tune?"

She looked down at her feet, remembering. "And you should give this one a spin when you find the time."

He accepted the CD with the oddest look on his face. At a loss for words, he settled for introductions. "I am Jon Snow. And you...?"

"Ygritte. And you're welcome." She supplied.

Jon Snow chuckled. "So, anything else?"

She leaned with her shoulder against the door frame, arms crossed over her chest. "If you start playing anything by Oasis one more time I will kill someone and that blood will be on  _your_ hands."

He snorted. "Any alternative suggestions?"

"Loads, but I don't know what other artists you listen to."

"Want to rifle through my music collection?"

She ignored the thick coating of sarcasm around the words and stepped over the threshold.

He sighed and seemed resigned rather than anything else. He pointed. "Make yourself at home, my lady."

She crouched next to a stack of bookshelves at the south wall of the spartan bedroom, half of which was stuffed with her object of curiosity.

(She hoped she hid her delight well at how they both had Taylor Swift as their guilty pleasure, because no one stacks albums they're proud of owning in the second row.)

Among several works of indie bands she was sure the friends of her friends had never heard of in their life, the sight of a woman dressed up as a slutty nurse was balm for her soul.

"Ha! So you do have a heart."

He frowned. "What?"

She pointed, her grin spread so wide across her face it hurt. "Only a compilation of all the anthems of every college kid, ever."

Realization dawned on his face. "Oh, that. Arya - my sister, she gave me that when I moved here. Haven't gotten around to listening to it yet."

It was only now that she noticed that the CD was still packed in plastic.

"You gotta."

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards into half a grin. "Is that an order?"

"Yes. This is serious."

He rolled his eyes, but she could see he wasn't all that pissed off at her yet. "All right then, I will."

A beat.

"Not  _immediately._ "

"Why not?"

"I have things to do."

"You want me to get the hell out of here, yeah?"

He looked sheepish. "Well-"

"Nah, I get it. See you around?"

"Su-"

He seemed astounded that he hadn't needed the actual police to haul her out of his bedroom in a straightjacket.

* * *

He returned  _Dookie_ a week later by throwing it in her mailbox and expressed surprise at finding her in front of his apartment again soon after.

"Do I bite?"

"What? No." He spluttered.

"Then why were you too rich to ring the doorbell one flight of stairs down?"

He shrugged. "Sorry. Didn't want to bother you."

"Did you learn a second song on guitar at this point?"

"I thought you were threatening to go on a murder spree if you should hear me trying to play anything again."

She returned his grin. " _Wonderwall_ was an important factor in that. Feel free to try  _Ocean Avenue_ or  _Walking Disaster_. Or  _Stacy's Mom_ , if you're feeling adventurous."

"Yeah, about that."

"That's it, you're coming with me and I am not letting you out of my apartment until we are speaking the same language."

He let himself be pulled along and she found that his hand fit quite nicely into hers. 

Halfway through  _Simple Plan,_ the whole endeavor turned into a make-out session that was only interrupted for her to put on  _The All-American Rejects_  instead.

**Author's Note:**

> The thought of Ygritte and Arya getting along and bonding over Blink-182 makes me happy.


End file.
